Reading, listening to, and questioning America... from the southern Great Plains

IRS, non-profits, think tanks, and the tea party

The NonProfit Times (NPT) has a recent article titled "With Election Around The Corner, Charities Must Tread Carefully."
It discusses 501(c)(3) entities (which most think tanks are) and what
types of political activities they are legally allowed to engage in.

Following are some excerpts:

The presidential election is less than 100 days away. Federal tax law
strictly prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations from engaging in activities
to support or oppose candidates for public office. However, there are
still a number of ways that 501(c)(3)s can be involved in the political
process without running afoul of the law.

Unfortunately, the line between prohibited and permissible activities
is murky and can be easily crossed if proper managers of the 501(c)(3)
are not careful in how they plan and execute the activities. Now might
be a good time to review the rules that will help stay on the right side
of the line while involved in the process.

If done correctly, 501(c)(3)s can:

Help register voters;

Conduct get-out-the-vote (GOTV) activities;

Publish voter guides;

Create candidate questionnaires;

Host candidate appearances;

Host debates;

Conduct issue advocacy;

Allow leadership and staff to be politically active; and,

Create an affiliated organization.

The key is to remember that these activities must be nonpartisan, and not favor one candidate over another.

Here
is some more information from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) about
501(c)(3) think tank restrictions on their lobbying and political
activities. ...ThinkTankWatch___

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) appears to be
anticipating an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit, after multiple
complaints challenging the "corporate bill mill's" charitable status,
based on documents recently obtained by Bloomberg News.

According to internal ALEC documents, the organization has discussed
forming a nonprofit organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code,
apparently in anticipation of the IRS revoking ALEC's current
"charitable" status. Charities (which are organized under Section
501(c)(3) of the tax code) as well as nonprofits are tax exempt, but
ALEC's charitable status had allowed its corporate members to write-off
their ALEC membership dues and costs as tax-deductible charitable
contributions.

ALEC's charitable status has been challenged in multiple IRS complaints in the past year -- and despite publicly dismissing
the allegations as "patently false" and "ignor[ing] applicable law,"
behind the scenes, ALEC's leadership apparently recognizes their
vulnerability. ...PRWatch, Center for Media and Democracy, 12/2012.

___

So yeah. Great minds are making similar connections about dubious groups claiming non-profit status when they are clearly engaged in partisan politics. We have to be careful, but above all we need to be clear about what really constitutes a non-profit, non-partisan "social welfare" organization. I mean, come on!

Let’s be very clear: because the Internal Revenue Service holds so much
private data, and because it can make people’s lives absolutely
miserable, it is of paramount importance in our political system that it
both is, and is perceived as, an apolitical entity. If it discriminated
against tea party groups that attempted to register as 501(c)4 social
welfare organizations, then that’s a grave offense, and it needs to be
investigated thoroughly and dealt with severely.

But the particular bias people are angry about is the opposite of the
bias they should be angry about. The problem wasn’t that the IRS was
skeptical of tea party groups registering as 501(c)4s. It’s that it
hasn’t been skeptical of Organizing for America, Crossroads GPS,
Priorities USA and Heritage Action Fund registering as 501(c)4s. The IRS
should be treating all these groups equally and appropriately — which
would mean much more harshly.

Instead, the IRS has permitted 501(c)4s to grow into something
monstrous. And if they cower in the aftermath of this embarrassment, it
might make matters even worse.

Social welfare organizations have a couple of neat advantages.
They’re tax-exempt — which means, in effect, that your tax dollars
subsidize them. And thanks to a 1958 court case, they don’t have to
disclose their donors.

But they’re not meant to be political. A 2003 IRS document
says that “organizations that promote social welfare should
primarily promote the common good and general welfare of the people of
the community as a whole.”...Ezra Klein, WaPo

I have yet to get my head around how the tea party movement, except for the first months of its existence (mostly before it took the name "tea party"), can be considered a non-partisan and non-profit, tax exempt organization. I'm sure there have been abuses on both political sides this issue, but not equivalent abuses -- not that I've seen.___

As Jonathan Chait points out, there is something particularly cruddy about Heritage. But maybe Heritage will crumble all by itself, without any help from the IRS. It's had enough "help" from within,from Jason Redwine and his noxious arrogance and racism.

The fallout from the Heritage Foundation’s immigration reform study
has developed into a watershed moment for the prospects of passing a
bill. The release of the study prompted a fierce backlash from proponents of reform, which compounded when Dylan Matthews reported
that Jason Richwine, a co-author of the study, wrote a dissertation
arguing, “No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with
whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ
children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.”